


The Crow Alone

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Character Studies (Dragon Age) [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Antivan Crows, Depression, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 18:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5059957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once they were three, but now Zevran stands alone, and emptiness is all that remains.  Zevran leaves Antiva for Ferelden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crow Alone

Zevran is daggers flashing in sunlight, his smile diamonds and dazzle.  Taliesin is cord and sinew, leather tracing gilded patterns as he cuts and weaves.  Rinna is cleverness and curves, freckles on her nose and blood on her hands.  They’re killers; they’re lovers; they’re  _them_.  They move slyly in the sea air, shadows, stalkers, Crows.

But sometimes Rinna grins at Zevran, her eyes crinkling at the edges, and he feels something fierce and bright and raw.  He doesn’t know the word for it, but it’s there, deep within the place he had long thought hollow.  Sometimes in the night she’s soft and sleepy against him, her head comfortable in the space between his neck and his shoulder, and he kisses the top of her head where Taliesin doesn’t see.  He thinks he likes it.  

Maybe, maybe this is real.

Until the day that Rinna’s on her knees, weeping for them to believe her.  The realness fades, burning as it goes.  Zevran’s never felt tall before, but he does now, standing like cold iron high above her.  She’s bleeding from Taliesin’s knife in her side, and he takes his pity and his shame and he smothers them in hate.  The words spill out of him like vomit, and the way they wound her is worse than steel.

When she falls to the ground it’s Taliesin’s blade that looses the crimson from her veins, but it’s  _his_  saliva in her long dark hair, glistening in the moonlight.

A master’s words, a sneer, the true meaning of what it is to be a Crow.  He and Taliesin walk home empty.  It tears at him.   _We were wrong._

Memory gets tangled; the burn of too much wine, the ache of the bed bereft.  He doesn’t sleep well.  Food’s only ash and a smell of leather buried inside his throat.  He trades kisses in strange beds and sometimes he loses himself for a moment in flesh and wet and warm.  But sometimes he turns aside, arousal softening unexpectedly, and the would-be lover rolls away and takes the covers with them.  He sits up long after they leave, and he breathes in, and he breathes out.

Now and then he cleans his daggers in the dawn light, hands trembling on the hilts; wonders if he ought to press just a little harder,  _here_.  Then he sets them aside, reaches out to clean his armor, and the scent of leather works its way beneath his nails.  He doesn’t speak of it to Taliesin.

Word crackles in his ears, whispers on the street.  The impossible mark.  He tells the masters what he wants, and they give it to him, another knife in the ribs.

It doesn’t take him long to pack.  Poisons, blades, he brings them all.  He does not want his death to look intentional.  It would not be becoming of a Crow.

The storefront by the docks catches him.  He’s nearly late for the ship.  But they’re there, soft boots in the window, leather oiled and beautiful, each fold exquisite.  He goes inside, grants himself a boon; lifts a cuff up, feels its richness between his thumb and forefinger.  He shivers.

Rinna would have liked him in them.

The shopkeeper asks if he would like to try them on.  Zevran shakes his head.   _I leave Antiva today, but I shall return for them.  They will be a reward for a job well done._

The shopkeeper nods.  She doesn’t notice how the lie drips, silver, from his lips.  She does not see him again.

Zevran is one of the first to board, his footsteps sure among the throng.  His pack is light on his back.  He has brought little with him by design.

The sea air is crisp and biting, a strong south wind, gulls aloft on the bracing breeze.  Zevran is silent, eyes dark and shuttered, mouth twisted down.  He’s only one, one mind, one heart, one man.  No  _them_.

He keeps his hands on his daggers, and he doesn’t feel anything, anything at all. 

**Author's Note:**

> I might have made myself tear up a little. ;_;


End file.
